


Dragon's Hoard

by vaguenotion



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dragons, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Party Banter, Some nonsense magic rules, at the pace they're going dorian will be gray by 35
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 06:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15091205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguenotion/pseuds/vaguenotion
Summary: There's a dragon in the Western Approach that has a unique appreciation for all things shiny and sparkly.Unfortunately for Lavellan, the mark on his hand is both of those things.





	Dragon's Hoard

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like there was a time where I could write a oneshot that was fewer than 5k words, but... for the life of me I cannot remember when.
> 
> Also, the pacing in this is undoubtedly jank as hell. I wrote it in chunks before my morning tea so just roll with it,

The Western Approach was, in a word, shit.

Sand and sun got everywhere, stayed everywhere, made themselves known everywhere. Dorian didn’t think himself capable of being burned by the sun anymore, had convinced himself that a steady diet of wine and luxury in the heat of Tevinter summers had made him somehow immune. And yet, anything left exposed without the protection of sun ointment was red and stinging and aching within the hour. And Maker help him, that discomfort only gave way to suffering of a worse variety: itching and, dare he say it:  _ peeling. _

And then there was the size of the blasted thing, an affront to the Maker. An affront to  _ him _ , which was decidedly more immediate. He was no stranger to long travel times, but at least there was variety in traversing forested countryside. He only had so many stories from the Imperium that he actually wanted to share, and Sera could only propose so many word association games before they were all driven up the wall.

To say nothing of the dry heat damaging his hair, the dehydration damaging his skin, the shifting dunes driving him slowly to madness, and the unceasing humming coming from Mahanon.

Constant. Repetitive. Just loud enough to be noticed. Through banter and stretches of relative silence, over dunes and around craggy rocks, before and after clashes with wildlife. Dorian had heard him humming on plenty of other trips, but here in the Approach, it was nonstop. As if he were trying to fill the great shitty emptiness.

“Not much farther now,” Bull said. His voice was weighted with barely-contained excitement. They had discovered evidence of dragon activity on their long trek to find an old tomb, and with each pile of bones and dried dung, Bull’s shoulders grew just a little bit tighter. Whatever cool exterior he was trying to exude at the start of the journey was hanging on by a thread now. 

“I don’t see why we’re friggin’ doin’ this,” Sera muttered, her voice just a bit too loud to mask Mahanon’s humming. “Nobody said anything about a dragon.”

“With our track record,” Dorian sighed, “it was almost inevitable.”

“Yeah, well,” she huffed, “if we have to fight a dragon at night? I’m out. Have fun.”

“No,” Bull said, a smile evident in his tone, “that’s the best part. Everything else lost to darkness; just you and the beast.”

Dorian tried to ignore the obvious shudder of anticipation radiating from the qunari. “There’s something to be said for the element of surprise, I suppose.”

Mahanon had transitioned seamlessly into an unfamiliar tune, something sorrowful and lilting. Dalish, probably. He paused in the middle of the song to speak. “We’re just staking it out,” he said, ever the gentle voice of reason. “It’s the temple we’re after.”

“Unless we have no choice,” the qunari reasoned with a grunt. “It’s probably guarding the thing. Dragons with hoards are the best kind. More dangerous… Don’t suppose dragons are nocturnal?”

“World’s worst owls,” Sera snorted, a quip that made something adjacent to sense. Dorian glanced over his shoulder, eyes following their tracks in the moonlight. He was about to say something about finding their way back when a familiar  _ snap--crack--sizzle _ stole back his attention. A flash of green light in the corner of his eye, and then there was Mahanon, holding his left hand out away from him, eyes already tracing the desert around them to find the rift.

“To the northeast,” Bull said, all but abandoning his singular focus on the dragon. The rift’s dull gleam was across a small valley between two dunes, drifting like smoke above the sand. In a practiced show of unity, the four of them dismounted and hitched their horses to a long-dead tree, bleached why by the desert sun. Without a word, they drew their weapons and advancing on foot.

The rift threw out a predictable volley of spirits and clawed terrors, cast back easily with a few practiced rounds of chain lightning and one of Mahanon’s fire mines. As the last of the spirits were pulled back into the glowing rift, Dorian moved to his lover’s side, choosing to be near him for whatever inevitable challenge came next. He tried to guess where the demons would materialize, his sharp gaze seeking out radiated energy, smaller pockets of rifts that had spawned from the main one.

There was a moment of calm. The eye of the storm.

“Did you see how that last one popped,” Sera asked, a wild grin on her face. “It was like a pimple!”

“Awful,” Dorian deadpanned. “Just awf-”

A roar, piercing and distant, interrupted him. All four of them tensed, weapons raising, but found nothing but the bubbling green light from the rift.

“What was that? What demon? Where?” Sera twisted and pivoted, an arrow nocked and ready to fire and the source of the noise.

“It’s not from the rift,” Mahanon said, his focus torn between the incoming volley of demons and the distant sound.

“It’s the dragon,” Bull confirmed, entirely too happy for the occasion. 

“Shit. Fucking piss shit,” Sera said, and then the rift ruptured once more, and the hulking form of a pride demon rose from a bubbling wound in the ground.

Mahanon set a fire mine before anyone else could react, and it was either good luck or good placement that it erupted beneath the demon’s feet so quickly. Stunned and disoriented, the demon stumbled and took a moment to reassess, awarding Bull the window he needed to rush it and the arrow Sera fired to lodge itself between the shell-like armor between the demon’s neck and shoulder.

Pressed, the demon send out a whip of lightning in a general sweep in an attempt at stopping as many enemies as possible. Dorian felt the heat of it as it passed by out of range--he had pulled back to get a better scope of the battle from afar, as did Sera. While she knocked another arrow and he readied another spell, he caught sight of Bull coming up from a roll, having dodged a sweeping arm. Dorian paused, searching, searching, before a flash of magic in the darkness behind the demon caught his eye. Mahanon had avoided the whip by receding in the opposite direction as Dorian and Sera, and was now out of range and out of the pride demon’s mind.

It was, effectively, the end of the battle.

While the three remaining party members threw volley after volley at the demon’s front, that glowing green hand advanced from behind, cautious as Mahanon picked his next steps. There was no humming now; just a hunter going in for the kill. Dorian felt sweat beading on his brow as he flipped his staff around the back of his neck to add some force to his next attack, his focus split for only a moment more before he decided that Mahanon was safer than the three of them.

He focused just in time to throw up a shield as a ball of purple lightning flew at him. Somewhere over the noise of crackling power and his own surprise ringing in his ears, he could hear Sera swearing at him to get his head out of his ass. Bull heaved his axe into the demon’s flank, earning its full attention with a roar, distracting it away from the mage and the rogue. 

Perhaps Bull had been anticipating a slower reaction--or perhaps his focus was only on getting the attention on himself, and not the fallout of his actions. Either way, the demon spun with surprising speed and raised a clawed hand, sparks already shooting out from its palm and into Bull’s face as it readied another volley. The qunari had only a moment to pull up an arm, to try and shield himself from the brunt of the blow--

A brilliant flash of green, erupting forth from the demon’s back. A horrible sound like air sucking inward at great speed, somewhere between a howl and a wail, and the pride demon began to collapse backward, inward, into the rift that Mahanon had opened across its back. It imploded, too lit in that brilliant flash of light to be as gruesome as it likely was, and then as quickly as it began, the demon was gone. Left in its wake was a second rift--this one smaller, inverted, like only the ones Mahanon could make. 

Slowly, that rift closed in on itself and collapsed. Above, the original rift sputtered and coughed, green light falling like foam from it’s maw. In it’s ambient light, Dorian spotted Mahanon catching his breath across the small divot between dunes. 

“It’s too high,” was all he muttered as he turned and began climbing the dune opposite them.

“You fuckin mad man,” Sera blurted, the marriage of awe and disgust on her tongue. “Keep that hand away from me for a while, yeah? Least ‘til I forget.”

Bull was rubbing the stubble on his chin where some stray tendrils of electricity had left the vaguest impression of singe marks. “That was a close one. Thanks, Boss.”

“Was probably overkill, though,” Mahanon grumbled, his voice mostly muffled between him and the side of the dune as he struggled up to the top. 

“Only you would kill a pride demon and play at modesty,” Dorian replied. He rolled out his shoulder and frowned at the singed earth beneath where the rift had been. “Though I admit you probably could have killed it with something less… impressive.”

Mahanon reached the top of the dune. He was far enough away where it was possible he hadn’t properly heard Dorian’s reply, and maybe that was for the best. From up there, Mahanon was resplendent in the light of the full moon, his large luminescent eyes reflecting it back and giving the illusion of glowing. He frowned up at the rift, nearer to him now, and lifted his left hand. 

“So anyway,” Bull began, “I think we should set up camp once we reach the ridge. Stake out the area, see where the best points are to advance on this temple. We don’t know what’s down there-”

“Wait, shh,” Sera interrupted. “Stars are blinking out.”

“Andraste’s tits, Sera, what does  _ that _ mean,” Dorian groaned, lifting his eyes to the sky. He had to squint to make out the stars behind them through the brilliant flash of light caused by Mahanon closing the rift. It lit up the entire valley between the dunes. 

“They were vanishing and reappearing,” Sera insisted, “almost like-....  _ Shit, _ ”

“Boss!”

Dorian’s eyes widened. As the rift ruptured and collapsed, and the force sent Mahanon’s hand back and away, the green light lessened, and Dorian could see it. A huge black shape, drifting silently across the heavens above, looming closer, more defined, more detailed, until--

“Dragon,” Dorian roared, hoisting his staff into a ready position. It wasn’t fast enough.

Behind Mahanon’s back, soaring down below the tops of the dunes on a draft of wind, the hulking shape of a dragon was racing at them. It was too close,  _ too close, _ right on them, its powerful front claws reaching out. Mahanon turned, eyes wide, reaching for his staff. His left hand was still sparking, still glowing.

He wasn’t fast enough.

The dragon’s talons closed around Mahanon’s torso. Dorian could hear-- _ feel-- _ the breath flatten from his lover’s lungs as the force of it pulled him clear off his feet. With a skull-splitting cry, the beast brought down its massive wings. Dorian dove for the ground to avoid the massive leathery things, feeling the sheer wind force they caused pull hard at his clothing. For a moment, all he knew was sand and his arms over his head and adrenaline.

There was a great cacophony of sound, the downdraft of the beast’s wings, the sheer size of it roaring overhead, the sound of Sera shouting--screaming?--in panic, Mahanon’s name sharp on his tongue as Dorian scrambled back onto his feet to assess the situation.

But there was no Mahanon.

Dorian whirled around to face the direction the dragon had flown. Sure enough, it was gaining altitude again, arcing up and around, away from them. Back toward the ridge, toward the temple. Toward where Harding had warned them of a dragon.

And in its front talons was Mahanon, kicking and struggling, his hand still a spark of brilliant green against the night sky.

“Shit!  _ Shit!” _ Sera was scrambling in a circle, starting and stopping multiple times as she tried to process what had just happened.

“Mounts, now,” Bull bellowed, a tone so hard and authoritarian that Dorian found himself racing for the horses before he could think. The horses, which were crying out and struggling against where they’d been tethered to that shitty old tree. Its branches were splitting from the strain; it was a miracle they got to them before the old wood splintered and their fastest route to the Inquisitor ran off.

“Ride hard,” was all Bull said, that same hard tone driving them like a whip. Dorian threw himself onto his horse, kicking hard as he did, and they were off. Their supplies--what hadn’t been thrown off by the horses’ kicking and fighting--shuffled noisily as they pressed for speed in the desert sand. 

Dorian’s eyes strained against the night sky. He could see it, just barely: that spark of green light. His mind was blank but for the roar of panic and Mahanon’s name. 

To his horror, the green light vanished after a few more moments, along with the vague impression of where the dragon might have been in the sky. Down below a ridge of red stone, the wall they’d been advancing since just before sunset.

_ Travel at night _ , Harding had advised.  _ More varghest, less sunburn. Pick your poison. _

You forgot to mention the fucking dragon, Dorian thought hysterically. 

-

Mahanon was good under pressure. He always had been; it wasn’t something he’d had to learn, necessarily, though he’d had plenty of practice in recent months. Even as a child, for all his anxieties and his tendency to overthink, when things came to a head he was all focus and drive. 

Now, unhelpfully, it didn’t seem to be kicking in.

He had had no time to process what was happening between closing the rift and getting snatched up by a dragon. (A fucking dragon! Like something from a fable that Deshanna would tell them when they were children. Absurd.) He had seen the look of dawning terror on his companion’s faces, had heard Bull’s voice cut over the crackle of the dying rift. He had turned, expecting another demon, barely processing Dorian’s announcement that it was a--

A fucking dragon.

_ Creators. _

The breath had been knocked from him with enough force to break ribs. He was ripped from his spot atop the dune, the earth falling further and further away from him as he struggled for minutes, hours, days to catch his breath. Air refused to fill his lungs. His chest felt locked up from the force of being grabbed, from the strength of being held in those huge claws, from the shock of it all. The panic that surged through him kept the mark on his hand active, adrenaline fueling it longer than it would have on its own.

But he couldn’t fight the grip of a bloody dragon, could he? 

Even if he had the breath, had the strength, the beast was hauling him higher and faster. He had survived a great many unsurvivable things, but a fall from a dragon’s talons would surely kill him. Over the rush of wind, and the thrumming push of huge wings again and again as the dragon soared back toward its nest, Mahanon struggled to find air, to find a plan, to find his friends dotted in the moon-soaked sand below. But he could barely breathe, let alone find reason, let alone find his companions.

Far below his dangling feet, the craggy den of varghest that they had been warned about flew by. Another swath of dunes, interrupted by the a spear of sandstone jutting forth like a breaching shark. And then, so suddenly, that cliff wall that had seemed unreachable for hours. Rust-red stone rising from the desert like it were holding the sands back. It was massive and pocked with caves and tunnels--their passage through, if he had been entering on foot. 

And then, on the other side, a small valley. Strewn with ruins and dotted with desert trees. Mahanon finally managed to pull in a reasonable amount of air, his voice rasping in the process. His vision, edging with static from lack of oxygen, began to clear for the effort. Below, he could see the lowest point of the valley at the center. It was mostly barren, the stone earth scored with huge claw marks and dusted with animal bones of all kinds. As the dragon dipped low and circled, Mahanon renewed his struggle. Every foot closer to the ground they grew, the more desperately he scrambled for a plan, any plan,  _ anything at all _ , but his mind was flushed with panic. He pressed his palms against the hot talon wrapped around his ribs and kicked his legs uselessly.

He had lost his staff the second the beast had grabbed him: no direct magic assault. He had used what strength the mark had offered to create that secondary rift around the pride demon: no Fade-powered magic assault. The spells he could create offhand, without a staff to channel them, would do him no good against a dragon: so no fighting at all, essentially.

Against a dragon. 

_ Shit. _

The ground was soaring closer now, and a new panicked thought gripped him: was this thing going to rely on all four of its feet to land? Was he about to be crushed to death in a smear of gore between desert stone and a dragon’s paw?  

At this distance, there were sparkles of light amongst the bones: gold and silver, metal glinting in the moonlight. Armor and weapons and looted chests. Carried here by the dragon? Left by warriors who had tried and failed to kill it?

With a terrible, bone-shaking rumble, the dragon landed on the ground. To Mahanon’s short-lived relief, it held him aloft as it did so, landing first on its hind legs before falling forward onto its one free paw. Before it came to a complete stop, the talons around his body opened up, throwing him several feet to the ground.

Mahanon hit the earth hard and rolled. What little air he’d pulled into his lungs flew out of him again with force. For several dizzying moments, his head spun. The slow onset of pain set in with each breath he drew. First his right ankle, which had taken the brunt of his weight upon landing. It sent a shock of pain up his leg into his hip and back, causing him to gasp in agony with what little breath he had. Broken. Next was his chest, aching in protest. Then his right elbow and arm, which he had landed on. A slow progression of worsening news.

For several moments, he lay there, unmoving. Tense from pain and lack of air, tense from fear and panic. 

Then, a hot rush of wind pushed at his hair and clothing, and slowly, he uncurled and lifted his head.

The dragon’s snout was only a few precious feet away.

And that grace under pressure? That focus and drive? Nowhere in sight. Just an unhelpful blankness, the instinct to go very still, and a small whimper from the back of his throat.

The beast drew in a deep breath, pulling air in with enough force to shuffle Mahanon’s hair before the next exhale blew it back away from his face. He winced, closed his eyes for a moment of blind fear before that same terror forced his eyes open again, unwilling to look away from the monster before him.

The adrenaline caused a surge of light to spark from the mark on his hand. He rushed to smother it, to hide it beneath his abused torso.

The dragon lifted its head high, higher, soaring up to its full height. Mahanon’s hand sparked again at the thought that this was the last thing he was going to see: this unflattering angle of a dragon, seconds before it opened its maw and swallowed him whole. Would he feel all those teeth splitting into him? Would luck serve him one last time, allow him to be killed instantly, or would it chew? 

Mahanon curled in on himself, eyes closed tight, forehead against the ground. His muscles locked up, his heart singing in his chest at a speed he had never felt before. A vague and dizzying thought about his family, about Dorian, about the Inquisition, flew through his mind. His hand sparked and crackled, driven by his fear.

But agonizing death did not come.

And did not come.

And did not come.

With painful slowness, Mahanon uncurled his head and rolled to peer up at the dragon. It was watching him, staring, bewitched. For a terrible moment, Mahanon thought perhaps time had simply slowed down, allowed him to process the last seconds of his life. 

Then he saw the green light from his palm reflecting in the dragon’s eyes, and he understood.

The idea was too simple to entertain. Wasn’t it? How many centuries of dragonology had insisted such a notion was absurd? And yet… it was simply staring at his hand.

His sparkly, shiny hand.

-

“This is fucked,” Sera said for possibly the thirtieth time. Her voice, hushed though it was, echoed off of the cavern walls as they picked their way between the narrow red rocks. “No way he’s still alive. Right?.... Do you think he’s still alive?”

She sounded uncharacteristically desperate, and had been chattering through her anxiety since they’d been forced to dismount at the mouth of the cave. They had ridden their horses in as deep as they could go, had sent a few volleys of fire and arrows behind them to chase off the varghest that had pursued them during their race through the desert. They’d have to hope that their mounts were still there and breathing when they returned, but more urgent was the hope that their  _ inquisitor _ was still alive and breathing, and so horses seemed an insignificant thing in comparison. 

“I mean, it just took him,” Sera continued, mostly to herself. Neither Bull nor Dorian were responding, one too focused and the other too anxious to be bothered with conversation. 

Where they were, they could already smell dragon. There was something unique about it--the hide, maybe, the heat that radiated and cooked the normal animal smell it might have had otherwise. Ahead, moonlight brightened the tunnel, and they quickened their pace.

When they emerged, they found themselves atop a tall slope. It lead down into a valley, lined with massive stones from a long-collapsed structure. Trees clung here and there. Some of the ruins even boasted recognizable carvings. Among all the detail, the odd collection of animal bones almost went unnoticed. 

The valley sloped a great ways down ahead of them. It came to it’s lower point in the center where the sand seemed blown aside, and an ancient stone platform rose just high enough to appear natural. 

There, deceptively small from this distance, was the dragon. It was lying down, one huge taloned paw crossed over the other. It gave the infuriating impression of being content.

Even from this distance, they could see Mahanon. He was on his side before the dragon, unmoving. Dorian would have thought him dead if not for the occasional flash of green light that flared up with varying degrees of brightness. 

Dorian scrambled forward, only to have Bull’s huge hand catch the front of his armor and hold him in place. 

“Flank and distract,” the qunari said quietly. “We have to get that thing away from Lavellan.”

“I’m not drawing that thing toward me,” Sera said. “We can’t fight it one-on-one.”

“We don’t need to,” Bull answered, earning both of their attention. “You got any of those flash bombs?”

Sera, normally excited at the prospect of lighting up her grenades, seemed entirely too wary now. “I got loads of em... I can line that far side? Set ‘em off with an arrow from a safe distance?”

Bull hummed, once, considering. For a moment--infuriating long, we don’t have  _ time, _ Bull--he scanned the valley in silence. Surveyed what they had available to them, calculated a plan. 

“Set a few pockets of ‘em along that far wall,” he said, his words careful and deliberate, as if he were forming the plan while he spoke. “Make sure you can hit them all with an arrow from over there.” He gesturing toward an elevated outcrop of stone on the other side of the valley. “Dorian and I will head down toward the dragon. Can you set any magic mines?”

“No,” Dorian admitted. “I’m afraid that’s our darling inquisitor’s trick. But I know what you’re asking--I can handle it.”

“Good. We get down there, Sera distracts it, we grab Lavellan. We head for that cave,” Bull said, gesturing toward another outcrop that acted as a roof to a secondary cavern beneath. It would provide shelter and allow them to cover ground in their escape.

“Sera, spread those detonations out. We all clear?”

“Yeah,” Sera said, transitioning more fully into the mindset needed for the task at hand. Her tone hardened unconvincingly. Trying to convince herself that she was ready for it, Dorian thought. His eyes lingered on Mahanon’s prone form down below.

“This feels frighteningly undefined,” he tried, but time was not something they had on their side, and there was no better plan in the moment than what they’d just cooked up.

“Let’s move,” Bull urged, and just like that, they were off.

Sera vanished from sight faster than Dorian had anticipated. He hesitated only for a moment, feeling frayed by how untested their plan was, how quickly they had made and committed to it. Then he took a fortifying breath and followed Bull as the qunari picked his way down the slope, moving from shadow to shadow deftly. 

The slope of the valley, more of a dune than a hill, was a hindrance. More than once Dorian stumbled over his own feet in the sand. It didn’t cause much noise, but each time he recovered, he was certain the dragon would have noticed his reckless movements. Certainly Bull did, as Dorian could see the tension coiling tighter and tighter still each time he regained his footing after a stumble. 

But the dragon never looked away from Mahanon. As they progressed down the slope--and surely this was one of the reasons Dorian kept stumbling--he couldn’t take his eyes off of his collapsed lover. The elf hadn’t moved since they’d entered the valley. Was he dead? Would the mark continue to fluctuate like that if the host had expired? He struggled not to rationalize that possibility. He had to believe that the elf was unconscious, or even possibly feigning it. What would  _ he _ do if he had just been stolen away by a dragon? Playing dead was certainly on the table.

The memory of another dragon flashed across his mind. Surrounded by the lush overgrowth of the Emerald Graves, its hulking form rearing back in a panic. That time, Mahanon had been quick on his feet, flipping and tumbling around its tail, keeping in infuriatingly close range for a mage. He had been grinning, their success rapidly becoming inevitable. He had laughed when it was done, had rolled into the fresh spring grass in a fit of exuberance. The grass stains and blood had only emphasised the radiant beauty of that smile.

Dorian felt his heart clench. The closer they drew the worse Mahanon looked, his armor askew, his clothing torn from a bad landing. And still he did not move, and  _ still _ that cursed mark sparkled and stuttered with light.

At this distance, the dragon appeared bewitched. No wonder it hadn’t noticed Dorian’s stumbling: its piercing eyes were fixed squarely on the glowing mark. They were closing in on it now, near enough to hear the dragon’s breathing, steady and powerful. Close enough to see that Mahanon had some tension in his shoulders still, although whether or not he was conscious was still unclear.

Silently, Bull made one decisive gesture toward a collection of ancient stones, and the two of them ducked behind it out of sight. Dorian pressed a palm against the warm surface of the ruin and took a steadying breath. 

Now it was a waiting game. 

They had killed several dragons together, over the last few months. At no point had it started to feel easy or like they were getting the hang of it. Each terrible beast was its own powderkeg of problems, and each one had come with its fair share of near-disasters. Fighting such a creature was an act of unbridled arrogance and stupidity, and yet there was the Inquisition, on the receiving end of distress calls or heading into uncharted territory in search of the next useful Corypheus-defeating thing. And for all his worrying, Mahanon had squared his shoulders and set his jaw and headed into each and every storm as they came. 

So it made it strange, in a terrible abstract way, to see him laid out before a dragon now, as if he were on an alter. While Dorian’s muscles cramped from squatting behind the stone, and sweat beaded on his brow in anticipation, he couldn’t help but notice the comparison before him: an ancient and powerful beast--a deity to many--versus one small elf. Unstoppable force, immovable object. Did the dragon realize it was in casual company with someone capable of killing it?

In the same space that Dorian thought it, Mahanon shifted. With deliberate slowness and a stiffness that could only be pain, he forced himself up and into a seated position. The dragon made no move in reaction, only continued to watch its captive closely. 

Bull’s knuckles brushed Dorian’s shoulder and he rose his head to follow the qunari’s line of sight. After a moment of struggling to pick out what he was being shown, Dorian could make out a small figure moving among the shadows of a boulder across the valley floor. Sera, nearly arriving at her rendezvous point. 

Dorian’s eyes cut back to Mahanon, who was sitting there staring back up at the dragon. In his lap, his hand continued to glow. It was beginning to stutter, as if the energy it took to maintain it was running out. 

Beside him, Bull nodded once. In silent unity, the two men shifted into a ready position. 

Silently, Dorian counted to seven.

Nothing. How long did it take to knock a damned arrow? It was unlike Sera to miss. Couldn’t she see the inquisitor, bloodied and vulnerable in front of that wretched overgrown lizard? Was she waiting on the wind? Were the planets not aligned properly for her to make the shot--

Far across the valley, there was a sudden and brilliant flash following by a bang. It wasn’t as loud as Dorian had anticipated, but it still made him jolt. The explosion was followed by several more in staccato bursts, inconsistent and unpredictable. Bull held out his arm to block Dorian from any premature movement.

And oh, how the dragon reacted. It’s wings, tucked in against its side, sprang out and up in surprise as it reared onto its feet and turned its powerful neck toward the explosions. Dorian could see its tail lash out behind it as it sprang into an instinctual defensive position, unaware of what had just entered its valley.

But it didn’t leave that platform.

In fact, the way it was positioning itself--the way its tail curled, powerful and long, around the perimeter of the platform--gave the impression that it was protecting something. Trying to shield something precious from as many angles as possible.

Dorian’s eyes snapped to Mahanon, still seated in the middle of the dragon’s reach.

The inquisitor had jolted at the sound of the explosion, had looked toward the bright flashes of light, but where the dragon continued to snarl in that direction, Mahanon recovered quickly and began to look anywhere else. Dorian could see him peering into the darkness in the opposite direction of the explosions as more of them lit up the eastern side of the valley.

He knew they were out there.

“It’s not moving. Pavus, do something,” Bull said, his voice low and heavy with the anticipation of violence. He was hefting his axe up and down, slow and steady, preparing himself.

Dorian took as deep a breath as he could manage, given the circumstances. He had been focusing mana since they came up with this rushed, hairballed plan, and even still he wasn’t sure if he could inflict this spell on such a large target. 

On the platform, Mahanon curled an arm around his chest for support and twisted to look over his shoulder. His eyes, reflecting light in the darkness like a cat’s, passed over where Bull and Dorian were crouched in the dark. After a second, his attention snapped back to them, and his expression morphed to a look of focus.

“Now or never, Vint,” Bull growled.

Dorian took off through the shadows to their right, keeping a fair distance as he skirted the invisible perimeter around the dragon’s nest. He could feel Mahanon’s eyes on him even as he focused on the task at hand. When he was near enough to where he intended to be--the vague direction of Sera’s bombs--he skid to a halt beneath a spindly desert tree and hefted his staff to the ready.

Dark purple light flared down the length of his staff to the ornately carved stone at the end, where it built up in a frenzied ball of magic. He braced himself, focused his strength and what mana he’d been able to accrue, and took a deep breath. Tried not to think about Bull waiting in the shadows, tried not to think about Sera hiding Maker knows where. Certainly, he tried not to think about how things were about to go very, very sideways, or the amount of sharp teeth that would be snapping at him momentarily. He waited for the right second--the perfect turn of the dragon’s head, the best possible target he could hope for--and in a wide sweeping arc, he threw the curse directly at the dragon’s face. 

Given the size of the beast, it reacted as if someone had kicked sparks into its face, rather than the most powerful spell Dorian could muster in the moment. It reared its head back with a snarl and lifted one of its massive front paws to swat at its snout, some instinctual attempt at clearing the magic from its eyes. 

Fast as lightning, Dorian broke into a run back the way he’d come. Pins and needles were spreading across his arms and shoulders, the temporary side effect of throwing so much magical energy at once. He’d have stopped to collect himself behind cover if he had the chance.

When he got back to where he had left Bull, the qunari was gone. In the time it took Dorian to flee for cover, the dragon had surged toward the source of the explosions, convinced that an intruder was waiting for it in the shadows. It had created an opportunity for Bull to make a run for Lavellan.

It also started the clock on their relative anonymity. In seconds, the dragon would realize there was nothing killable on the eastern edge of the valley, and turn back.

The situation wasn’t fucked just yet, but they were doing their best to get it there.

-

The instant something exploded, Mahanon knew his situation was improving.

He had briefly entertained the possibility that his companions would turn back to camp for help, but had dismissed it in the same breath. Perhaps if he had taken different people with him to investigate the temple, but he had invited Dorian for his vast knowledge of ancient Tevinter artifacts, Sera for her keen eye toward disabling traps and locks, and Bull because… well, Harding had said there was a dragon somewhere over here. Mahanon had thought it would be a nice gesture.

That particular trio was not going to bail back to the forward camp to come up with a careful plan and gather recruits. So the explosions were as reckless as they were inevitable.

A flash of purple magic--necromancy, what on  _ Thedas _ was that man thinking--drove the dragon out of its nest and toward the distraction. The instant Mahanon was afforded a shred of real distance between himself and the beast, he felt something in him relax and shift toward action.

He curled forward so as to try and stand, and there was Bull, barreling to a stop beside him. Each footfall the qunari made sent a small shudder through the stone beneath them.

“You okay, Boss?”

“Dragon,” Mahanon answered, his voice tight. He reached up blindly and found Bull’s hand, the strong grip easily pulling to his feet. Forgetting for a moment his collection of injuries, Mahanon shifted his weight and drew in a sharp breath, collapsing on his bad ankle. Bull steadied him as easily as if he were stopping a door from drifting open.

“Yeah. Pretty crazy, right?” Bull returned his axe to the holster at his back and grinned with something frightening lurking in his eyes. “You’ll have to tell me all about it. Broken?”

He gestured to Mahanon’s ankle, now held aloft where the elf was bending his knee. Mahanon gave a brief nod. “Unsurprising, given my history” he answered. Behind them, the dragon let loose a roar of frustration. 

They didn’t waste any time. Without another word, Bull stooped and swept Mahanon’s legs out from under him, lifting him into his arms as if he weighed nothing. And perhaps for Bull, he did. Mahanon gripped at the front of his armor for support, eyes blinking wide before his ribs began to protest and his expression tightened.

Under any other circumstance being carried would be the primary discomfort, but now Bull was running, which was no small task without his arms to swing for balance. Jostled and tense from pain and adrenaline, Mahanon did his best to track the dragon over Bull’s shoulders as it spun its attention back toward the nest. It took less than a second for the beast to recognize that its recent acquisition was missing, and it let loose a bone-shaking roar as it turned back. 

At some point, Mahanon caught sight of Dorian running alongside them. From the man’s expression, it was clear that having his back to an angry dragon was not a practice he was particularly enjoying.

Mahanon turned his eyes ahead to where they were running. He picked out Sera, several yards into a cavern that looked not unlike a wide, thin mouth. She had an arrow knocked, ready to provide some cover fire for whatever small amount of good it would do. Behind them, the dragon’s next roar was more menacing, more focused, and Mahanon got the distinct impression that it had spotted them. It put a noticeable spring in Bull’s step.

An impossible heat coupled with an unnatural light passed by overhead. A ball of condensed fire collided with some of the ruins up the dune to their left, exploding them into a thousand pieces of rubble and shrapnel. They were twenty feet, fifteen feet, ten feet from the entrance of the cavern. 

Another burst of fire, closer this time, shook the earth as it impacted where they had been only seconds before. The dragon roared again, made even louder as it echoed back from the western wall of the valley. 

And then they were in the cavern, racing further and further in. The corridor curved naturally and branched off in several directions, some of them more immediately passable than others. Bull picked one on instinct and kept up the retreat until the dragon’s screams were muffled by distance and the cave’s condition became too difficult to traverse quickly.

And then, a dead end.

“Brilliant,” Sera laughed, in that unhinged way she often did when she really meant to say ‘we’re thoroughly fucked now.’ Dorian, out of breath and out of mana, bent double for a precious second and braced himself on his knees. Bull took a few strides toward the cave wall and set Mahanon down.

“How bad are you hurt,” Bull asked. Dorian sucked in a lungful of air and pushed passed him, crouching next to his lover. His hands fluttered around Mahanon for a moment, unsure what to check first, before settling on his face.

Mahanon was already trying to calculate a plan to get them out of the entire predicament. Harding’s report indicated a series of tunnels and caves they could use to avoid the dragon, but it was a matter of choosing the right path. They didn’t have their mounts, which meant they didn’t have their supplies, so their time was limited by a lack of water. Perhaps if they could find a spring in these caves, it would give them the option of waiting out the dragon’s interest. 

He looked up at his companions for a moment, frowning, before Bull’s question registered.

“Oh, um. Ankle, ribs, arm maybe. I’ll be fine. We’re trapped.”

“Of  _ course _ you’re welcome for saving you, it was our pleasure,” Dorian replied, cupping Mahanon’s face with both hands and turning him left and right to inspect his head for any wounds. He circled the pads of his thumbs around on the elf’s cheeks as he looked, leaning in in case he missed any bumps.

“I’ll be okay,” Mahanon said again, but it was softer this time. An attempt at consoling Dorian, who sighed and rested his forehead briefly against Mahanon’s before finally sitting back.

“Okay yeah,” Sera cut in, “you’re not in pieces, that’s great. Prefer you when you’re not dragon bits. How do we get out of this friggin’ cave?”

Mahanon looked back the way they had come, over Dorian’s shoulder. His companions followed his gaze. The dragon continued to bellow in frustration, echoing loud and clear down the tunnel. It was scraping at the entrance to the cave like a mabari digging at a gopher hole. 

“The temple,” Mahanon said, speaking before the idea was fully formed. “We exit through the temple.”

“This presumes the temple has a back door,” Dorian replied, unconvinced.

“Built by the Imperium, early Divine age?” Bull asked. When Mahanon nodded, the qunari hummed thoughtfully. “Then it should. They had lots of smuggling routes built in in case they had to make a hasty exit during the onset of Andrastism.”

“From the bottom of my heart, Bull,” Dorian said, “I want you to know that I hate this side of you.”

The mercenary only smiled at him, smug and satisfied. “You’re thinking one of these tunnels will connect to the temple?”

“Or that one of them is an escape route  _ from _ the temple,” Mahanon sighed. “Then we could just follow that.”

Sera, for her part, had begun to pace. The close proximity to an angry dragon--especially one that was trying to get to them--had deeply unnerved her. “Okay then, let’s make up our damn minds already! Wanna get away from that thing.”

“The problem,” Mahanon began, eyeing her with something between sympathy and reluctance.

“Problem?” She replied, pivoting to look down at him. “What other problem is there besides the  _ big friggin dragon _ ?”

“The temple is that way,” Dorian concluded, pointing back the way they had come. 

Sera stopped her pacing and stared down at them. Bull sighed, because it was easier than saying “well isn’t that just our luck?”

“You mean we have to go back outside,” Sera asked, her panic edging into mild hysteria.

“No, it means we have to pass by the dragon’s line of sight and into another tunnel,” Mahanon clarified. “And we should do it soon, because it’ll come up with another plan on how to kill us before too long.”

“Fuck. Shit fuck ass.”

Dorian gave Sera a look. “My sentiments exactly.”

“So. A round, back at the Herald’s Rest, to whoever can come up with a halfway decent distraction.” Mahanon pressed his palms against the cave wall behind his back and started to haul himself up.

“Far ahead of you, Amatus,” Dorian replied, assisting him and helping him stay propped up once he was on his feet. “Just a matter of timing.”

-

_ Good things come to those who wait. _ Who had told him that? Surely not his mother, who indulged every whimsical impulse. Clearly not his father, who had been so dedicated to manipulating the course of his life that it had nearly killed his son. Had a nanny told him that? Or… 

Maker, had it been Mahanon? Why was that man constantly the root of all Dorian’s character growth?

Either way, it was flitting through his mind as they crept closer to the sharp bend in the tunnel ahead. The curse he had flung into the dragon’s eyes had been strengthening this entire time, ready to detonate at his command. 

At his side, Mahanon did his best to shuffle along without making a sound. His right arm was around Dorian’s shoulders for support, his left hand extended outward, sparking. The green light was casting along the cave walls, illuminating the tunnel around them. They lingered, just out of sight of the cave entrance, and braced against the piercing volume of the dragon’s frustrated cries. 

Dorian could feel the elven man straining to call on the mark. From what little they understood of it, it was clear that the mark had more control over Mahanon than Mahanon did over it: it would flare up when triggered by a rift, and he was able to call bursts of energy forth in combat if he paced himself. But to keep it active was draining Mahanon of his mana in a way that Dorian could feel just by standing beside him. Standing here supporting his injured lover’s weight while they tried to lull a dragon to placidity had Dorian second guessing their plan.

And yet, Mahanon stood as squarely as he could on one foot and held his hand out with the confidence of a man who was not beginning to shake like a leaf. And after a few moments of wincing against the cacophony, the dragon’s fury stuttered, and slowed, and quieted to a steady threatening snarl.

It had finally noticed the green light. 

Dorian and Mahanon both took a deep breath in perfect harmony. They glanced at each other, their faces inches apart. Both of them were exhausted, sweaty and dusty from the desert. Mahanon had sand in his hair and cast shadows beneath his eyes from his rapidly-diminishing energy reserves. There was a small possibility that Dorian’s hair was not in perfect order.

He wanted to say something. To tell Mahanon that he didn’t have to do it, that if he wanted to skip this part of the plan he could. But Dorian had also learned that if something needed to be done, Mahanon was the kind of person who would see it done regardless of personal cost. And also there was a dragon listening in. So he held his tongue and placed a quick kiss on Mahanon’s cheek bone, and then guided his lover’s arm toward the cave wall so that he could balance on his own.

Mahanon tested his weight on his ankle. It didn’t appear to go well, but he remained silent and focused. Slowly, he extended his hand around the corner, letting the mark draw the dragon’s full attention.

For a moment, they all tensed up. Would the beast snap its jaws at the offered hand? Would it blow a breath of fire in without warning and kill them all? But that dangerous growl softened almost immediately when the mark came into its view. Almost as if it were relieved to find that the latest addition to its hoard was alright. 

Mahanon steeled himself--pressed his open palm flat against the cave wall, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath--and began the cautious shuffle into full view. 

Dorian’s heart rose higher and higher in his throat with each small one-legged hop. Mahanon used the wall to guide himself as he went, rounding the corner and coming to a stop. A veritable shield between the dragon and their escape route. With what little energy he still had--and the fact that he had any at all was frankly surprising--Mahanon lifted the mark and forced the last scraps of his mana into making it flare.

It was blinding. Dorian braced himself, growing tenser still as Sera and Bull burst forward from behind. They raced behind Mahanon’s back, out of the first tunnel and into a second. Blinded by the mark and thoroughly fixated, the dragon made no indication that it noticed them. At least not with sound, and judging from Mahanon’s expression, not through motion either.

This was the tricky part. Dorian took a fortifying breath and waited for the signal on the other side of the cave entrance where their companions had just fled to.

Illuminated by the green light of the mark, Dorian could see the pain on Mahanon’s face, and the rapid onset of total fatigue.  _ Come on, come on, _ he urged silently, adrenaline fueling both fear and frustration as he waited, waited,  _ let’s go already _ .

And then he saw the unmistakable glint of Bull’s axe, strategically reflecting the light from the mark back at them, and Dorian moved.

Coiled like a spring and holding his breath, Dorian didn’t waste a second. In an instant he lunged into view and wrapped his arms around Mahanon’s torso, simultaneously detonating the Walking Bomb spell that had been gestating in the dragon since he cast it. Driving his weight forward, he felt Mahanon’s right arm loop around the back of his neck for support while Dorian all but carried him in the direction that Bull and Sera had gone, racing for cover.

The detonation was as loud as it was bright, which was to say extremely. The spell--which had been festering around the dragon since it was cast, causing minor waves of damage and irritating the hulking monster--had also been drawing spirits from the fade who were drawn to death. And what was a dragon if not an unending source of carnage? Dorian had worried that the curse wouldn’t be strong enough to affect the entire beast, but whatever this dragon had gotten into, it was apparently a target ripe for the undead to pick. When Dorian detonated the spell, the force of it slammed into his back and sent both him and Mahanon forward several feet before they hit the ground and rolled.

A few numbing seconds of silence gave way to a loud ringing in his ears. For a moment, Dorian couldn’t tell which way was up, down, or sideways. As the force of the explosion settled, he forced his eyes to open in the dust-heavy air and found a messy head of red hair tucked up near his chin. His arms were wrapped firmly around Mahanon, who was slowly reaching up to cover his ears with shaking hands.

It took Dorian a moment to realize that Sera was yelling at him, and a moment more to realize she was standing right above him while she did so. Her voice was muffled and distant, as if he were hearing it under water. The ringing in his ears continued uninterrupted.

Two huge hands pried Dorian’s arms away from Mahanon and pulled Dorian up by his under arms. He stumbled blindly to the cave wall, struggling to find balance as the tunnel slowly began to settle and stop spinning. Disoriented, he wiped some of the dust from his watering eyes and watched Bull scoop up Mahanon from the cave floor. 

Sera was still swearing at him. Her words were becoming steadily more clear.

“-ucking warning, you poshed up prick! What in Andraste’s sweet tits did you think was going to happen?!”

As the ringing faded, Dorian became aware of another sound. Snarling, agonized and furious, was coming from the mouth of the cave. Bull was nodding at both Dorian and Sera, trying to indicate with his chin for them to get their asses moving, saying something about no time, “Let’s get out of here before--”

And then there came the unmistakable sound of a dragon inhaling, deep and hot and loaded with impending inferno. Dorian’s eyes raked over Mahanon’s limp form, and he threw up his hand toward the direction of the attack.

Orange light filled the tunnel, followed immediately by fire. It barreled in like a surging flash flood, incinerating everything. It rounded the corner toward them and came flush against the barrier Dorian had called up, stopping it from proceeding down the tunnel toward them.

It was just a wall of white hot light, agonizing to be so close to. The barrier kept back the flames, but the radiant heat still stung like fire. Dorian kept his arm steady, swear beading and tracking down his temples. The fire consumed, but the barrier remained stubbornly in place.

And then, as quick as it came, it ended, a lungful of dragon’s breath spent. Dorian held up the barrier even after the fire faded, watching through it as the stone tunnel on the other side smoked and smouldered, stone so heated that it was edged in red embers. 

“... Damn,” Sera said, after a heavy stretch of silence. “I take it back. Your not a cankerous man whore.”

Dorian slowly, steadily unclenched. His arm was still held aloft, the barrier still in place. He looked over his shoulder at her. “When did you call me a cankerous man whore?”

She shrugged. “Dunno that I did, actually. Definitely thought it though.”

“Can we go home,” Mahanon interrupted, his voice frail from exhaustion. 

“Maybe hold that barrier up a bit longer, if you can,” Iron Bull reasoned, giving Dorian an unreadable but strong look. 

He wasn’t going to argue with that.

-

At some point, Mahanon had fallen asleep.

This was not an entirely accurate statement, because one does not fall asleep with broken ribs on horseback, even if one is leaning back against their lover’s chest and the desert air is cool and damp in the small hours of the morning. An accurate statement would be to say that, at some point, Mahanon had passed out. But after being kidnapped by a dragon and requiring rescue, “fallen asleep” sounded just a touch more dignified than “passed out”, so he awarded himself that kindness.

When he stirred, the sun was rising along the horizon, casting long and dramatic shadows from the peaks of the sand dunes around them. He was still seated in front of Dorian on his hart, since it was the biggest mount in their group and the only one that had lowered itself when it recognized that its rider was too injured to climb on. He still had his back pressed against Dorian’s warm chest, was still secured in place by Dorian’s strong arms on either side of him, reaching around the hold the reins. Directly ahead of them, he could see a curving line of smoke snaking up into the sky from the forward camp they had set out from the evening before.

Not quite home, but certainly better than a dragon’s nest.

“So,” Dorian began, when he felt Mahanon shift to wakefulness, “who wants to explain  _ this _ debacle to Scout Harding?”

“I think the Inquisitor is the best one to recount this tale,” Bull said, his smile audible in his voice. “And I expect details, Boss.  _ Details _ .”

“Your basic mammalian needs disgust me,” Dorian said flatly.

From her spot on her mount, riding on the opposite side of Bull, Sera laughed. “Imagine the veins in Cassandra’s neck when she hears. And that big bulgy one on her forehead?” Her statement devolved into devious laughter.

The smell of food drifted toward them on a cool breeze, and their focus became rather singular. Mahanon closed his eyes and tried to feel Dorian’s heartbeat against his back instead of the ache of his ribs or the throb of his ankle. The steady shuffle of hooves through semi-packed sand was hypnotic. He tried not to think about how much mana he’d expelled, how long it’d take to gain it back. Long days of lying in his tent at this forward camp, doing as much as he could while every available soul tried to force him to rest.

He tried to focus on the positive: the image of Dorian beside him, telling him absurd stories and refreshing a cool damp cloth for his forehead; the amusing and bizarre gift that was Bull’s obsession with dragons, and how he’d get to tease the mercenary with details the entire rest of the trip; and maybe, if he really was to have nothing else to do,  _ maybe _ they would leave him alone to smoke some elfroot in peace.

The thought made him smile. He never had the chance to enjoy a pipe when they travelled. He had to be the Inquisitor, and Andraste’s Herald certainly didn’t lounge on a grassy knoll and smoke a pipe for hours on end. 

In fact, it reminded him of a tune his brother used to sing. Something about a maiden with fiery hair and something something, he never could remember the words. But the tune, that much he knew by heart. So he started to hum, very quietly, into the desert morning.

Behind him, Dorian chuckled. “You never stop, do you.”

“Be fair,” Bull said, sounding entirely too reasonable, “he wasn’t humming for the dragon... Were you?”

Mahanon ignored them both. And maybe hummed a little louder.


End file.
